Friday, July 28, 2023

Climate Deaths

 If you listen to the United Nations and other climate alarmists, you would think that climate related deaths are on the rise. It's hot, and cold, and people die from the heat and the cold. And hurricanes and tornadoes and floods, and onigod.  We're all going to die.

Except the alarmists are cherry-picking the data.  100 years ago there was no NOAA, very little rural electricity, virtually no television.  Very little radio.  People didn't know that disasters were coming,   If you go back to 1900 and the great Galveston hurricane, you'll find that those folks had no clue.  In the morning, they were leading their lives and by nightfall, the island was pretty much gone.

One researcher has done the hard work, and reports that climate related deaths have declined by 90% in the past 100 years.

This data shows that climate-related events—floods, droughts, storms, fires, and temperature extremes—are not actually killing more people. Deaths have dropped by a huge amount: In the 1920s, almost half a million people were killed by climate-related disasters. In 2021, it was less than 7,000 people. Climate-related disasters kill 99% fewer people than 100 years earlier.

Why is that?  Well, several reasons.  Electricity for one, and Willis Carrier's invention for another.  Then there is the information revolution, where virtually everyone has a cell phone and knows when a hurricane, or tornado is coming.   We're in better shape technologically, and we're more mobile than our ancestors.  

I sit here in my shop, typing an internet post on a computer, using wireless internet under air conditioning.  Many of those things were impossible in the 1970s.  We are better able to weather the storm, or to run from it if necessary.

2 comments:

Andrew said...

We've added a lot of concrete and black top since then too

Anonymous said...

Hurricane Audrey was only 66 years ago; well within living memory.